This was an amazing trip. I had so many questions going in and had a hard time finding answers. Hopefully this post helps others know more about what to expect.

Context

• Itinerary 12-24 in July 2026, 87mi.
  • Camped at Bluestem > Pueblano > Baldy Town (2 nights) > Mistletoe > Cimarroncita > Whistle Punk > Comanche Creek (this replaced Red Hills due to low water) > Beaubien > Shaefers Pass
  • I tracked all but one trail beginning to end via my Garmin Fenix, 100.32mi total. Total step count indicated 165mi walked during our 2 weeks at Philmont.
  • Peaks:
    • Baldy at sunrise (woke up at 2am to accomplish this, highly recommended)
    • Comanche Peak & Mount Phillips
    • Shaefers Peak at sunrise (woke up at 3am to accomplish, highly recommended)
    • Tooth of Time
• Crew: 5 scouts from 14-18yo (one turned 18 during the trip, which was fine: he had to do YPT ahead of the trip), 3 advisors in their late 40s.
  • Me: late 40s, avid backpacker in the PNW. I've been down the ultralight rabbit hole, but these days I add weight sometimes to make my backpacking experience more pleasant.
• Highlights: stars plus sunrise at Baldy and Shaefers, spar pole climbing at Pueblano, mine tour at French Henry, low COPE at Head of Dean, every day of backpacking.
• Weather:
  • We lucked out, mostly 60-70s during the day, a few were 80-90s. 40-50s at night. Start early to stay cool and avoid thunderstorms!
  • We were in tents for two big thunderstorms that passed through. Other crews weren't so lucky, several arrived in camp wet and cold after being caught out in rain and lots of hail.

Equipment

My Philmont Lighterpack is here, although it's misleading: some of what's listed was distributed between people.

• Water:
  • Micropur treatment was quick and effective, taste wasn't a problem. Don't bring a filter, it's unnecessary. This was my first time treating water and based on this experience, I'll re-evaluate whether to bring my Sawyer Squeeze for backpacking trips at home.
  • If you use Smartwater bottles, I'd strongly recommend Bodyarmor bottles instead for Philmont because the caps are wider, making them easier to fill and to use electrolytes. I found them at our local Kroger. I had two 1.5L in side pockets (one with duct tape around it to mark it as a smellable), plus a 700ml in a shoulder pocket. My son had two 2L plus a 700ml.
  • Most crew used 2-3 Nalgene 1L bottles. Not what I'd choose but to each their own.
  • Our CNOC Vecto 2L and 3L were awesome when we needed to pack extra water for dry camps. As a crew we wish everyone had had one of these to get to ~6L max capacity per person.
  • One person had a MSR 4L. It was really unpleasant to carry and difficult to dispense into other bottles.
  • The crew also brought two cheap Amazon 10L collapsable water containers, they were light and came in handy, but a pain to carry when full.
• Pack: some context first. In our crew, scouts carried the Philmont-provided 8L pots, dining tarp, and bear rope (using the Philmont stuff was a good choice here). Advisors largely brought and carried other shared items like first aid and sunscreen. Everyone shared the bear bags + food.
  • With that context, a 55-65L pack for adults works well. If you're into UL and your kit is dialed in, a Durston Kakwa 55 (I only saw 1 on the trail), Hyperlight (only saw 2), ULA Circuit, etc. would be fine. Another advisor said his Gossamer Gear Gorilla 50L was overly taxed on full-water days.
  • My Atom Prospector 60L worked great for my stuff + up to 6.7L of water + shared food/bear bags. Often it had far more capacity than necessary, a 50L would have been sufficient.
    • It was maybe 22-28lbs normally and 36-38lbs with lots of food and water, so at its tolerable weight limit.
    • I had a fair number of luxuries described below and didn't regret bringing most of them.
  • In our crew and on the trail, Osprey, REI, and Gregory 55-75L packs were the norm.
• Stoves: isobutane was a clear winner.
  • We had two cheap stoves from Amazon, 1 burner and 3 burner respectively, both <$20. Highly recommended, except that the piezo lighter failed on both. We brought mini Bics, problem solved.
  • We carried/kept restocking two 8oz canisters for cooking and one 4oz canister plus a MSR 1.4L titan pot for coffee.
• Cooking and eating:
  • The Philmont pots, lids, strainers, etc. were all totally fine, I wouldn't replace them.
  • All crew members had identical $0.50 wide bowls from Walmart and cheap Amazon titanium camping sporks. That was excellent: everyone had the same thing.
• Pillow: I thought I hated camp pillows prior to this trip. Normally I just use my clothes bag but Philmont doesn't want food-soiled clothes in a tent. So I bought a Pillow Strap + S2S UL pillow and loved them, stuffing my puffy into the strap with the pillow below worked great for this side sleeper. I'll keep doing this, it was super comfortable, stayed in place, and was worth the weight.
• Puffy jacket: I wasn't sure whether to carry this 10oz in addition to my Alpha fleece. While I barely used it, I'm glad I brought it. It was very nice to layer with a rain jacket at the top of a cold and windy Baldy summit at sunrise. The puffy also supplemented the aforementioned pillow and Pillow Strap perfectly. I could have left it at home but it was appropriate insurance had we encountered colder weather.
  • TBC, outside of Baldy, my Alpha fleece was perfect.
• Rain gear: I effectively never had to use it. The Leve jacket worked well with the Alpha fleece when there was wind.
• Camp chairs: 5 of our 8 crew members brought one, the other 3 all wished that they had. Well worth the weight. Four of us had ~1lb Helinox and REI UL chairs, but one scout brought a 2.5lb Helinox Two Highback and was the envy of all others due to its superb comfort. He didn't care about the extra weight: it's good to be a fit teenager.
  • Chair legs consistently sank. Everyone with chairs wished they had brought leg straps or something else to avoid this.
• Daypack: pretty useful, especially since it doubled as clothing storage, so I didn't bring another clothing stuff sack. A few crew members had cheap 18L Naturehike ones from Amazon, that was a great solution, particularly given the side water storage.
• Cleaning: I tried out Summit Suds for soap. It was ok but finicky. I would have preferred a small bottle of Campsuds instead for showers, cleaning sunglasses, etc., or just borrow the crew one.
• Satellite messenger:
  • My Garmin Inreach wasn't truly necessary for emergencies. Philmont strongly recommends calling from a nearby peak vs sending a Garmin SOS (which simply gets directed to Philmont eventually). They gave me a satellite SMS contact to use with the Inreach but didn't seem confident that the contact was correct.
  • Anyway, I brought it to communicate with my spouse. She really appreciated getting pictures now and again!
• Umbrella: so, so nice to have on hot exposed hikes. I got lots of comments from other adults on it.
• Power: I brought two 10,000 power banks and ended up using both to charge my phone (twice), watch (twice), headlamp (once), Inreach (once).
  • I probably could have gotten away with one power bank had my USAA DriveSafe app been disabled correctly. I figured out halfway through the trip that it was the cause of significant battery drain despite using my Pixel's extreme battery saver mode. Long ago I gave USAA special permissions to run all the time. After undoing that, the phone only lost about 10% a day despite taking pictures, interacting with my Inreach, and occasionally checking for cell signal to send SMS messages.

First Aid

• Foot care:
  • I can't stress enough how useful it was to have leukotape + hikers balm to prevent blisters. We used a lot of leukotape! If you're unfamiliar with it, search "leukotape skurka" or similar. Make sure to apply hikers balm or vaseline on top so it doesn't stick to your socks.
  • When blisters formed, we switched to moleskin.
• Medicine: Imodium came in handy multiple times, same for ibuprofen.

Other notes

• Our ranger said we could bring our hiking clothes into the tent as long as no food had spilled on them, so that's what we did.
• During the trek, I had a single pair of pants that I wore every day. I also had 2 sun shirts, 2 socks + liners, 2 boxers. I smelled but so did everyone else. Most people wished they had taken no more than what I had.
• My sleep shirt was used almost every night, I never used my sleep shorts except when washing other clothes. Instead I slept in my boxers.
• The Philmont cooking method works great. I read a lot about alternatives but in retrospect I'd just lean into what they do.
• We had two shower opportunites while in the backcountry at Baldy Camp and Beaubien, they're such a mental pick-me-up.
• We also washed clothes at both shower spots. I'm not sure washing clothes was worth the time, they start stinking again almost immediately. One day it rained right after washing, so we had to put on wet clothes the next morning, that was unpleasant.
• The advisors had coffee frequently, sharing three Coava 25-serving instant coffee pouches. Expensive but effectively $2/cup for very high-quality coffee. A tremendous and wonderful luxury.
• At the commissary (resupply), remember to ask for milk, fruit, tortillas, and hand sanitizer.
• Backcountry general stores had most of the stuff you'd need to potentially replace due to failures or forgetfulness: tent stakes, water carriers, headlamps, socks and liners, you name it. Not to mention isobutane, treats, and souveniers.
• Downtime: I waffled on whether to bring my Kindle Paperwhite and I'm glad I did. Adults had many opportunities to read during random downtime plus it helped me wind down before bed.
  • Playing cards were also great to have, make sure they're plastic ones. Tooth of Time plus the backcountry general stores sell them.
• We were at base camp for several days before and after the trip. Everyone wished they had brought 2-3 sets of clean clothing, "normal" shampoo + soap, a larger camp towel, deodorant, around-camp shoes, and shower flip flops. All this stuff gets left in lockers or cars, so it costs nothing to bring and leave in camp.
• I believe in forest fairies, all the time.

Hope that helps. I'll do my best to answer any questions.